


Coming Home

by sahiya



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Immortality, M/M, Timey Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-09
Updated: 2011-08-09
Packaged: 2017-10-22 10:55:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/237315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sahiya/pseuds/sahiya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Today, with a new body and a new face and a new <i>him</i>, the Doctor wanted <i>his</i> Jack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coming Home

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt **gray 29 joy ginger** at the wintercompanion Summer Hols. Many thanks to Fuzzyboo for beta reading, and for the mods for running another great summer fest!

The Doctor often wished he had not met Jack when he was in his immortal adolescence. Nine hundred had been considered mature even for the Doctor’s people, but that was when they were still around to enforce the artificial limitation of twelve regenerations. Frankly, once the Doctor had broken two thousand in his nineteenth incarnation (not that he’d made a big deal about it or, indeed, said anything to anyone at all, not even Jack, though he suspected he knew anyway), nine hundred had started to seem unthinkably young. He’d been so young and so broken and so foolish, and he wished he might have met Jack later; he was fairly certain it would have all turned out much better for them both.

Fortunately, living forever - or at least until he decided he’d had enough and it was time to stop - meant that there were plenty of chances to get things right. They’d even managed it a handful of times by now: Jack had traveled with his fourteenth self for a time, and with his seventeenth and his twenty-second. It was all out of order for them both, but Jack was a still point, a Fact, and in a way, that made it easier. He was a rock in the stream. Time swirled and eddied around him, but he was also always there for the Doctor to hang onto.

But Jack was still human, and that made it harder.

Now, the Doctor - the twenty-ninth Doctor - was ginger for the first time, and tall and gangly; he looked, he had to admit, a bit like a Weasley. Freckles, there were _lots_ of freckles, even in places he’d never had freckles before, and long, thin hands and blue eyes. And a sex drive, which was rather new again. His last self hadn’t had much use for sex, he’d been a bit too cerebral for it, but practically the first thing he thought when he finally stopped coughing up bits of the vortex was, _Brilliant! Time to find Jack and get shagged._

But not just any Jack. Today, with a new body and a new face and a new _him_ , the Doctor wanted _his_ Jack. His Jack had hair that was shot through with gray and a few extra lines around his eyes and mouth, and yet he was even more gorgeous than he had been as a picture-perfect young Time Agent. The Doctor hadn’t seen him in at least fifty years. The last time he had seen him, there just wasn’t any _zing_ for either of them, so it’d been at least two hundred since they’d last shagged.

The TARDIS always knew how to find Jack, and she was even pretty good at finding the right Jack. He entrusted her with the navigation, as he often did these days - seeing as how they never went anywhere she didn’t want them to go anyway - and wandered down to the wardrobe to find something suitable to wear.

Fifteen minutes later he had decided on a suit - blue this time, to match his eyes, with a very thin pinstripe - and was contemplating ties when he heard someone sneaking up on him. “I hope you don’t harbor ambitions of sneaking up on a Time Lord in his own TARDIS,” he said dryly, without turning around.

Jack’s only response was a sharp intake of breath.

The Doctor turned around, green paisley tie in hand. Jack stared at him. “What,” Doctor said, after a rather long silence, “no ‘hello’?”

Jack shook his head. Then he stepped closer, until the Doctor could see that it wasn’t shock that had frozen him; there was something very akin to joy shining in Jack’s eyes. Without a word, he kissed the Doctor.

They were perfectly of a height, the Doctor noticed vaguely; neither of them had to bend or stretch. Jack slid one hand beneath the open jacket of the Doctor’s suit to splay across the small of his back and the other into the short hairs at the nape of the Doctor’s neck. The Doctor made a noise startlingly close to a purr as brand new nerve endings fired for the first time. He fisted his hands in Jack’s cardigan and pulled him closer, wedging his leg between Jack’s thighs.

When the kiss finally broke, they were both breathing heavily. The Doctor felt wonderfully alive, aroused, and he wanted more than anything to take Jack to bed. But he had to ask him something first.

“Which one?” he asked, holding up the green paisley and the red and purple checked ties.

Jack shook his head. “Neither,” he said, the first word he’d spoken since he’d entered the wardrobe room, “unless you’re asking me to tie you up with them.” He took the ties from the Doctor and tossed them aside. Then, without letting go of his hold around the Doctor’s waist, he spun the tie rack, frowning in concentration. “Ah ha,” he muttered at last, and pulled a solid dark blue silk tie off the rack. “This one.”

The Doctor frowned at it. “Really? It doesn’t really look like me. It’s a bit . . .” _Boring_ , he wanted to say, but Jack was shaking his head.

“No, Doc. I promise you. It’s this one.”

The Doctor looked at him. Jack was smiling at him again, so quietly joyous. The Doctor suddenly understood. “You’ve met this me before, haven’t you?”

Jack leaned their foreheads together. The Doctor closed his eyes. Shagging or not, this was the most intimate he’d been with Jack . . . ever, possibly. “Did you ever wonder who put me back together after the 456?”

The Doctor went very still. “I thought you did it yourself.”

Jack shook his head. “I’ve waited centuries for this. You told me that there were a lot of good things to look forward to in the meantime, but it would be a while before I saw this you again. The _ginger_ you,” he added with a grin, and ran his fingers through the Doctor’s hair. The Doctor made a soft, involuntary noise of pleasure, and Jack did it again, his smile fading to seriousness. He leaned in and kissed him softly. “I don’t play favorites,” Jack murmured in the Doctor’s ear. “I’ve loved every one of you I’ve ever met.”

“I know,” the Doctor said. And he did; Jack had always loved him, even when they weren’t shagging, even when the Doctor was horrible to him, as he was on occasion.

“But this you,” Jack swallowed, audibly, “this you was the first you that ever really loved me back. I thought I was a monster - I _was_ a monster - and you loved me anyway. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t come for me when you did.”

The Doctor rubbed the back of Jack’s neck. “You’ll have to tell me when that is,” he said, “but later. For now - let’s go to bed.”

Jack nodded. “Yes, let’s, Doctor. _My_ Doctor,” he added, smiling, and kissed the Doctor until his head swam and he stopped thinking about circular causalities.

***

Jack was dead when the Doctor found him. His Jack had told him this was how it had happened, but that didn’t make it any easier. The Doctor sighed, gathered Jack’s broken body into his arms, and carried him into the TARDIS, where he sank down onto the floor, and held him across his lap.

It didn’t take long. Jack jerked, gasped, and stared up at the Doctor.

“Hullo, Jack,” the Doctor said, smoothing the hair back from Jack’s forehead. “Welcome home.”

 _Fin._


End file.
